And now the tears come. Still sleeping, she weeps – dribbling out from behind her closed, flickering lids. She’s sitting at the kitchen table, staring at the unopened envelope, while Ethan, nine years old, tells her to just do it, that he believes in her; that he knows she’s brilliant so they will too, and she’s tearing open the gummed flap and reading the letter on the headed paper, telling her she’s got the job – that they’ll do all they can to help with childcare arrangements, and she’s looking down and staring into Ethan’s happy eyes, and she knows that she has to tell him. Knows, suddenly, that she can’t carry it alone. Knows she has to tell him who his father was, and what she did.
And now she sees a prison. A visiting room. A tall man, shrunken by years. And she’s telling him about who she is now. About what she is becoming. About the good she is trying to do in an ocean of bad …
Quietly, tenderly, Ethan comes and lies down beside his mother. He wraps the quilt tighter around her shoulders, and lies behind her, one arm around her. It is an inversion of his first memory, when she would hold him like this, in the dark, and whisper in his ear that whatever was coming for them, she would stop it. That he was her everything. That he was her reason for becoming more than she was. He snuggles up close, and holds her until her breathing begins to find a softer rhythm. Lies beside her until he knows that wherever her mind is, there is nothing trying to harm her. Then he retreats to his own bedroom, and opens up the computer screens. Navigates his way to a page he only visits when he knows there is no chance of interruption.
Angles his head, as the screen fills with images of convicted paedophiles, recently released: whereabouts unknown. He hopes they’re dead. Hopes they’re all dead. Hopes they died in agony. He revels in the thought of their pain. He knows that as long as he celebrates the suffering of those like his father, it means that he is not like him – that the evil died when his mother stuck a snow globe in his throat.
When Ethan falls asleep, his own dreams are of nothing but the dark.
SIX
A shape at the door. Black trousers, black boots.
‘That helping, Cox? You look like you’ve fallen off the ceiling.’
He knows the voice at once. Mr Windsor. Declan, to his friends. Prison Officer HN 252. Plump. Beard. Spectacles and wonky teeth. He’s one of the friendlies. Still new to the job and convinced he can make a positive difference to people’s lives. Cox has met his type before. The younger ones always start out enthusiastic and compassionate. They believe that if they treat people fairly they will be treated fairly in return. That criminals are made by society and that all can be redeemed. Cox knows that within five years, Mr Windsor will be jaded beyond return. He will have been abused, spat upon, lied to, manipulated and physically assaulted by so many different inmates that he will no longer see individuals in need of a mentor, but as the accumulated scum of the earth. He will come to see himself not as a confidante and counsellor, but as a zookeeper. He will be the first to put the boot in whenever circumstances allow. He’ll have heard so many lies that he will be blind to truth. But all of this is yet to come. Windsor seems still blissfully unaware of what the future holds. For now, fourteen months into the job, Mr Windsor is wide-eyed and innocent – just the way Griffin Cox likes them. Decent people are so much easier to manipulate. They expect the best of everybody.
‘I said – is that helping?’
Cox’s voice, rising from the floor. Eloquent. Precise. ‘It is, yes, thank you, Mr Windsor.’
‘It looks bloody uncomfortable,’ he says, garrulous as always. ‘I have to sleep on the floor now and again when I visit the in-laws. Always wake up feeling like I’ve been stepped on.’
Cox files the information away, making a mental note in the big red ledger that he visualizes in his mind.
In-laws. So … he must be married. No ring, though. And why the floor? Religious parents, perhaps? No congress under their roof? Or perhaps a too-small house. Better yet, a too-fat wife …
Cox will enjoy finding out the answers in the weeks to come. And when he knows everything, he will work out how best to use them to his own advantage. It is a game he never tires of playing. It is not as much fun as murder, but it passes the time. Cox is always involved in a game of some description. His recent presence here is part of a game he has come to think of as his grand design – his ‘grand plan’. He experiences a sudden warmth, low down in his belly, as he permits himself to think upon the game in which he is currently engaged. The pieces he has crafted, manoeuvred, placed where they should be, employing the infinite patience of a man who has learned to truly savour anticipation.
He becomes aware that he has neglected his visitor. Offers up an inoffensive reply.
‘I’m not a stranger to discomfort, Mr Windsor. Delightful as
